Illinois Republican Senator Mark Kirk, who had already announced he wouldn’t support Trump, today said that Trump was “too bigoted and racist” for Illinois (via TPM).
Richard Armitage, the deputy secretary of state under George W. Bush, said he will vote for Hillary Clinton (via Politico).
And, Politico reports that Trump’s relationship with the RNC is strained and mutually distrustful, and his fundraising efforts are lackadaisical.
Josh Marshall at TPM says, “Trump’s not doing poorly; he’s not even running.” Marshall says Trump has done almost none of the actual work he needs to do to mount an effective campaign. Instead:
A few weeks ago, I really thought Trump had a real shot at winning. I was bracing myself for him to capitalize on some terror attack and vault into the presidency. But then he opened his mouth after the Orlando shooting, and he sounded like, well, an unhinged bigot. I know, I know, a lot can happen in five months. But, my general feeling of despair is starting to lift slightly.
Oh, Trump will say he was cheated out of it. He’ll blame the media, he’ll blame the Republicans who stabbed him in the back, he’ll blame the Mexicans. I’d be surprised if he didn’t say lots of non-citizen Latinos illegally voted against him.
And many of his supporters will eat it up, because they are stupid - pretty much by definition.
He’ll say it. But if we have 5 months of him just being useless and way behind, even freepers might not get too invested. And at some point, he starts to look incredibly lazy, even to people who might otherwise support him.
According to Illinois law, unless Petraeus files a declaration of candidacy in Lake County IL (where Kirk lives), a write-in vote for him will not be counted. So if Kirk is trying to make a statement, nobody will ever know he voted for Petraeus. It will not be included in any official tallies.
Isn’t this the same guy who disclosed classified material to his biographer who was also his mistress?
I’m just worried he’ll flame out like a gas-soaked pile of gun powder in the next two weeks, and the GOP will have a chance to mount an actual campaign with an actual candidate.
Clinton is rolling out an ad campaign in multiple swing states today. She’s running three different ads in Florida, Virginia, North Carolina, Iowa, New Hampshire, Ohio, Colorado and Nevada. The cost of the campaign is estimated at between 7 and 17 million dollars.
Meanwhile, Trump has $2.4 million on hand and can’t spend more till after the convention. So Clinton gets a few weeks to deliver a one-sided beat down, while Trump can apparently no longer rely on an unlimited supply of positive free media coverage.
Trump has trashed the media (while simultaneously saying that they’ll do what he tells them), and has also told the Republican Party to shut up and hand him their wallets.
Even then, wouldn’t that candidate need some serious catch up time to make up for all Trump for so long? And how would Trump fans feel about it? Hmmmm.
Not quite. I’ve seen several repeats of the “Rebuild America Now” ad (apparently a Trump super PAC) with Bubba denying the Lewinsky scandal interspersed with Hillary denying the email thing.
Interesting, thanks. What state are you in? I actually didn’t think there were any pro-Trump PACs. But, yeah, that’s a good point – even if the Trump campaign is running on fumes, the PACs still have some money.
Dubya would have let His People run his Twitter feed for him. He was a loyal party member and wouldn’t have gone off-script in public.
Nader is like Sanders: An idealistic man who isn’t given to irrational tirades like Trump is. His feed wouldn’t necessarily have been as managed as Dubya’s would have been, but it would have been just as policy-focused and appropriate.
I’d pay money to see what Perot would have done with Twitter. And YouTube. And Facebook. And Instagram. And Reddit.
